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Matt and Ante breakdown the Good, Bad, and Ugly of Croatia’s 4-2 win over the Dutch in the UEFA Nations League semifinal. The Vatreni will now play for their first international trophy. What would it mean to Croatian football fans around the world? Big deal or not?
Modric v. Messi. I will say this much, a bonus for the Modric side is that he actually hustles and makes defensive plays.
Well looks the Spanish are.going to beat Italy.
Well it looks like it’s the Spaniards
I didn’t see much
But looked like Italy was the better match up
Yolo
Luka will will this himself
Missing gvardi is massive as we all knew
No way vida doesn’t start
I’m sure it will be JJ on rb but what do you guys think would stanisic be better for shut down?
Idk about Vida for this game, especially against Spain he doesn’t have the pace and he somewhat shits himself with the ball.
What we do need are for a lot of the Italian and Spanish players to get fouls and cards that would be good for us to level things a bit.
What do cards do for this match? Seeing as it’s just the two matches what would another yellow matter???
Genuinely asking as I don’t see it being a factor
I could be wrong but I don’t think Spain is missing any players. If they happened to get some red cards, although it’s rare it could help level the playing field seeing as we don’t have Gvardiol and even Majer is playing with an injury so we are slightly at a disadvantage I believe. Given our roster.
I didn’t mean yellow cards, that would mean very little unless it happens in the same match.
I meant player suspension.
Trying to be funny in a sense smiley face.emoji was missing.
I heard gavi should have gotten a red…
There was a lot of shit-housery by the Spanish especially.
Also, I should add that Gvardiol’s absence will be particularly costly in a game against Spain. With their high press, the sub of Vida for Gvardiol will be a huge downgrade in dealing with that
It will be very costly against either side to not have Gvardiol, Vida’s passing and reliability with the ball will be a huge issue.
I would prefer maybe the Erlic, Sutalo duo in the middle, or even Stanisic. But not having Gvardiol there is definitely an issue. It was problem in the game against the Dutch as well, Vida isn’t particularly smart with the ball when dealing with that kind of press.
It will be interesting to see how Dalic plays his cards against either side. But while our history with Italy is better they can still prove difficult with their defence.
I am not really sure who I would rather win this match to be honest no easy challenged here.
In terms of style of play, Spain dominates possession so it could be a problem if we’re struggling to dominate it for ourselves.
The good news is we don’t have Rebić anymore to mess things up this time. I think we’ll get the better of them in possession this time.
Spain has a decent yet inefficient striker in Morata who will waste a lot of chances. But they will create a lot more than what the Dutch created.
Spain also has Dani Olmo…and you know he’ll step up big against us.
On the other hand, Italy has an elite keeper in Donnarumma (in case it goes to penalties) but Spain’s Unai Simon is no slouch either.
On paper, it’s better we get Italy but at this level, any small thing (like one bad game from a key player, or a poor ref call) will be a much bigger deciding factor.
We need italy to advance. Spain is a terrible match up for croatia.
Croatia is now relying on this ball control, smothering identity. Maybe the only team that can do it better is Spain, which throws Croatia completely out of sorts.
We’ve beat Spain before, but I hated how we performed against them in Euros 2 years ago. Were thoroughly outclassed and effective scoreline was 5-2 (not counting Spains own goal)